I was scribbling some history notes for one of Melbourne's local bouldering areas recently. That got me started thinking about the history and progression of bouldering in Australia and it's lack of documentation.

For Victorian bouldering history, other than a few more detailed snippets about Arapiles, and a little about the development of Stapylton bouldering my knowledge is limited. For other States I know even less!

There appears to be a lack of documented history for a facet of climbing which I personally get alot of pleasure.

Stone Crusade by John Sherman is a great example of a book about the history of bouldering (USA) with photographs, stories and anecdotes filling it's many pages.

Many will think that bouldering is a new game, and won't be aware of the long and proud history of bouldering in this country.

So if people would like to add historic information for bouldering Australia wide (not just Tasmania) I would be very interested to know about it.

Pictures, stories, contacts and anecdotes all welcome.

Thanks Martin

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  1. Jon Nermut

    Hey Martin,
    I can't say much about other states, but the history of Tasmanian bouldering can be divided into two periods:

    1. Before 2000 : There was not much development, and not many boulderers. Marcel Jackson, Justin Kennedy and Rob Williams were the main protaganists. They concentrated on areas close to Hobart, including Proctors Quarry, Gnarly Spider, Rocky Tom and Rosny Rocks. The Justin Traverse, The Grand Annihilator and Gnarly Spider are the stand out problems. There was a write up in the CCT Circular of the existing areas in about 1995. Marcel would have more to say about this period. There are some historical photos on his site at http://www.latrobe.edu.au/mathstats/staff/marcel/climbing/climbing.html

    2. After 2000: Bouldering got a lot more popular due to a number of factors. These include climbing gyms and lots of new areas being discovered. In 1999 Elderslie was developed, which had the attraction of nice freestanding sandstone boulders. In March 2001 Kim Robinson and Sam Edwards started developing Oatlands, which consists of high quality sandstone roofs and faces about an hour from Hobart. For the first several months there was nothing there under V9, until Jon Nermut, Stu Bowling and others started to develop some the more moderate problems. There was also much development on Mt Wellington, Coles Bay, Bicheno and other areas close to Hobart.

    In 2003 the first edition of the Tasmanian Bouldering guide was published by Jon, Kim and Stu, with about 500 problems. It now has almost 1000, and developing is continuing.